


You Are The View

by larryftnoctrl



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Model Harry, Photographer Louis, Uni AU, Uni Student Louis, Uni student Harry, inspired by Harry looking pretty, literally no one else makes an appearance, no real plot, self-indulgent fic, well sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 00:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11886492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larryftnoctrl/pseuds/larryftnoctrl
Summary: Louis is running out on time for his photography assignment and Harry looks lovely in red. It only made sense.





	You Are The View

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a tweet from BestLarrieFics. It's a pretty disappointing work as far as my expectations go but I quite enjoyed writing it.

“Louis I swear to god.” Harry sighs as yet another flash goes off. “Can’t we have one evening of just hanging out without you bringing your damn camera along?” He asks, lying on the lounge chair on the patio.

Louis flashes a charming smile. “I’m working Harry you know that, I’m stuck in a rut. My assignment is due in a month and I don’t even have a muse.” He sighs, setting aside his camera, a Canon EOS 1D X II, costing a whopping £4000. It was state of the art, a professional DSLR and Louis’ most prized possession. And well, when you were a student in the Parsons School of Design, one of the best photography institutes in the world, you had to have a state of the art camera.

Louis was spoilt, no doubt. He lived in a private single storey, two bedroom, villa in Greenwich Village, a short distance away from school. His father ran a law firm back in the UK and had enough money to support any whims and wishes of his 7 children as a result of which Louis was studying in the school he wanted to since 13 year old him got his first camera. At 16 he saved up enough money to rent out a dark room and began to seriously pursue his passion for photography.

He knew he needn’t have saved up the money but he had seen worse days and vowed to himself to only ask his father for money when it was his last option. His father paid for his accommodation and schooling and everything else was bought with his own hard earned money from his job at the record store and the book café.

Throughout the years Louis had managed to stay humble, arriving to school in a car he bought on a loan with help from his father because as a student he didn’t have much going for himself in terms of collateral. He had been raised by a single mother, his biological father too cowardly to take any responsibility of his own blood and in the 18 years that he lived in London he made many friends from different strata of society, each equally valuable to him.

At present in his fourth and final year, he was living with a friend he made here in the US itself, Harry. Harry was studying fashion design in the same university on a 50% scholarship. He had moved to the States three years ago after his mother remarried.

Harry’s mother was a rich philanthropist and cardiac surgeon who had grown up in a medium class family with an average income and knew what it was like to have to work for what you wanted. She raised her son the same, ensuring he never lacked what he needed but always worked for what he wanted. And the result of her upbringing was a smart, talented, industrious and humble man who lay on the lounge chair grumbling about Louis and ‘his damn camera’.

Harry and Louis met on a fateful evening in Louis’ second year. Louis had been ‘adventuring and exploring’ the entire campus of the university when he realised he found the perfect spot to watch and if he was lucky enough, photograph the undoubtedly a gorgeous sunset. It was early December and Louis was freezing his balls off and all he wanted was to see the damn sunset and get back in bed when a tall body came and stood right in front of him making him groan and call out. “Oi mate! Oi you there!! Long hair!!” the person doesn’t hear. Louis huffs and walks up to the person and taps their shoulder. “Excuse me mate, some of us are actually trying to enjoy the view here, so if you’d just take your huge body out of my line of sight!!” Louis says bitingly.

The boy blinks rapidly, brows knitting together in confusion. “I am the view.” He blurts out before he can stop himself and immediately slaps his hand over his mouth making Louis burst into laughter. “I am _so_ sorry, I can’t believe I just said that oh my god this is so embarrassing, I’m just gonna get out of your way.”

Louis grins. “I’d agree mate but I’m freezing and I just want to get some good pictures of the sunset before I have to leave in the better interest of my balls.”

“Yeah, yeah I understand, I’m gonna get out of the way.”

Louis chuckles and nods. “Much appreciated, The View.”

Harry lets out an indignant squawk. “I’m Harry.” He says sounding a little offended and a lot mortified.

Louis smiles devilishly. “But you just said that you’re the view.” Before Harry can respond, Louis lets out a little laugh. “I’m just yanking ye chain mate, I’m Louis.” He offers a hand, letting his camera hang by his neck.

Harry shakes his hand and grins. “There aren’t too many people in fashion design with much appreciation for photography.”

“Oh! I’m not in fashion design, I was just wandering about and I realised that the courtyard here offered a better view than literally any place back at Photography. Ironic huh?” he snorts.

Harry looks at his camera critically. “Don’t you think that isn’t the best camera for someone in photography?”

Louis protectively cradles his camera to his chest and frowns. “Yeah but I love her. Besides I’m saving up for a new one.” He slowly lets go. “Not that it’s any of your business.” He snaps snarkily.

Harry’s eyes widen. “Fuck, I uh, that was probably the equivalent of insulting your designing technique in fashion, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah pretty much.” Louis scoffs. “Now if you’ll excuse me and my not the best camera, we have some great photos to take. By the way, you should try designing with a lighter hand.”

Harry’s mouth drops open before he bursts into laughter causing Louis to start laughing too. That night Louis had gone back with no new photos and one new contact. Louis likes to think it was worth it.

Fast forward to two years later, the only change was that Louis’ ancient camera had been swapped out for a state of the art one and he had more than enough pictures of the sunset to make up for that one day.

At present though, the only thing on Louis’ mind was his monochrome assignment. They had to pick one colour and one object – a human, an animal a building, you get the gist and put it in such a way that it showed the importance it held in your life. Since technically both black and white were colours, some of his classmates did take the easy way out. So far the most challenging colour he knew that was taken up was grey.

In Louis’ opinion, grey was a complicated colour, one he could never work with. Of course when you work with black, grey definitely comes into the picture but to pick grey in itself sounded both extremely risky and extremely dull. With a colour like that, your representation had to be vibrant; your idea had to be awe-inspiring. Ideally Louis, being a true romantic at heart, with a soft spot for the colours of the evening sky , of autumn, would like to go with red, which would include spots of orange and dashes of pink but he needed to do something different this time. Just the sun wouldn’t do. Besides Louis had a passion for colours more than the sun itself. He needed colour as a muse.

Harry often laughed at him, claiming he talked like a painter and not a photographer and honestly, Louis had no answer to that. The first photographs that Louis saw were those of his parents and grandparents, black and white and while they stirred something inside of him, it wasn’t until he first saw a coloured photograph- at eight years old- his mother holding him as a newborn- that he truly felt a passion for colour and photography.

Harry himself was fond of photography but preferred the black and white form over the coloured version. Louis saw the beauty in Harry’s work, he really did, but it didn’t ignite the same kind of passion within him that the silly photos taken on their phones did.

Louis is jerked out of his reverie by Harry yelling his name.

“Oi!” Louis laughs, “I’m not deaf you know.”

“Yeah but it didn’t seem like you were going to respond anytime soon.” Harry shrugs.

“Whatever, I was thinking about the assignment, the one that’s due in a month, what were you saying?”

“I was saying I just found this awesome picture you took like a year ago”

Louis takes the camera from him and looks at the picture carefully and god it’s beautiful. Harry’s silhouette and a red, red sunset, Harry sitting in the water with his back towards the camera. And it stirs something inside him. “H, I just had the craziest idea but I have a strong feeling it’s great.”

“No! Nope! Not at all! Don’t even think about it.” Harry says firmly getting up indignantly and shaking his head.

Louis laughs. “But you don’t even know what I’m gonna ask for.” He whines.

“I’m not stupid, Louis Tomlinson, I will _not_ model for you!”

“That’s not what I want, don’t model for me just be my _inspiration_.” He wheedles persuasively.

“Louis, you know I don’t deal well with cameras.” Harry whines.

“Come on Harry please, this assignment is so important, you wouldn’t want me to get kicked out and be sent back to the UK would you?” he gives him the puppy dog eyes.  
Harry hits him, unamused. “I’ll be whatever doesn’t require me being on camera.” He concludes.

“Oh, come on babe!” he whines. “Okay, look, I promise I won’t ask for staged pictures, just naturals, just like I always photograph you! You won’t even come to know!” he begs. “I hate you.” He sighs giving him the camera. Louis whoops loudly and tightly hugs Harry chanting thank you in ecstasy. “You better make me look good you arsehole!” he laughs.

* * *

“So, what have you got for me Lou?” Harry asks plopping down onto his lap. Louis lets out a chuckle.

“There’s three empty chairs, Haz.” Harry nudges him with a whine and tells him to stop complaining. “I- uh- don’t have much to be honest.” Louis murmurs.

“What?? Louis, your assignment is due in a week!!” Harry snaps.

“I can’t help it, I- I picked red, and you don’t wear red very often.” Louis sighs.

“I hate you; you know what we need to do now.” Harry runs his fingers through his hair.

“What?” Louis asks, genuinely confused. He was just planning on taking pictures of the red brick house around the corner and making up some crap about it for the presentation.

  
“Exactly what I didn’t want to do. A fucking photo shoot. Are you free this evening?”

“Wait, you’d do that for me?” Louis asks surprised.

“Of course, you arse, now tell me, are you free this evening?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll clear it up, we can do some shots in the school studio and some in the open, you just um, bring the red?” Louis says excitedly. Harry nods with a little laugh. “Some pinks will work too, try to go for the darker pinks though, magenta over the classic baby pink you love.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure I can manage. Now show me what you have.” Louis nods and pulls out his camera, pulling up a picture of Harry in a dull red, almost maroon shirt, grinning brightly, his hand going up to push his hair back, left dimple out in full force, soft hair slightly flying with the wind. Louis loves the picture; it captures the brightness in Harry. “Oh god Lou, it’s so bad.” Harry whines. “Look at my shirt, it’s so unflattering and my nose!!!”

“Harry!!” he chides, separating the syllables patronisingly. “Babe, it’s a lovely picture, the shirt contrasts beautifully with the sky and your smile is making your whole face light up, it’s honestly beautiful, trust me.” He then shows him a similar one where Harry’s actually fixing his hair, the lush grass offering a beautiful burst of colour and the pinkness of Harry’s lips perfectly complementing his shirt. And then another one, taken against the wall his pink lips stretched in a bashful smile and the red stone in his ring, matching his slightly wrinkled shirt. Louis knows exactly what happened before this picture, and just the memory pulls the corners of his lips upwards.

Harry smiles at the picture. “I like this one, can this be the cover?”

“Sure, love, if we don’t get a better one that is.”

Later that day they head to the studio and are very lucky because they don’t need to wait too long. Harry starts off in a [red coat](http://the-larry-way.tumblr.com/post/164519342150/harry-for-louis-shoot-in-you-are-the-view-harry) with fish patterned all over and a tasselled collar. “Perfect” Louis murmurs, fixing Harry’s hair to make them look a little more wind ruffled, leading him to a pale blue backdrop.

Harry stands there awkwardly. “Well, what do you want me to do?”

Louis chuckles a little. “Just be natural, love, try not to look directly at the camera.” Harry nods and tries out a couple of poses, making Louis chuckle. “Alright babe, this looks kind of ridiculous.” He admits honestly.

Harry pouts a little. “I’m sorry, is it the coat, is it too much?”

“No, the coat looks great, you’re just really stiff, I need you to be yourself, just be free.” Louis hums softly.

“I’m sorry; I don’t want the shots to come out badly.” He whines softly.

“Hey, it’s okay, no worries, yeah, you’ll be great, remember I picked you because of natural pictures, that’s exactly what I want.” Louis assures him softly and Harry nods with a long sigh. They take some more pictures in that particular coat before Harry changes into a patterned red suit with sneakers and a leather collar, hair having a wet appearance.  
Louis chokes on his own spit when he sees him in the collar. “Why do you own a leather collar, Haz?” he asks, coughing to clear his throat.

“I own a lot of things that could get a similar reaction out of you mister.” He tells him with a laugh.

“Okay, don’t need to know.” He tells him to sit on the floor with his ankles crossed and crouches in front of him. “Perfect.” He murmurs slowly and takes the shot. Harry tries on a few more costumes and Louis gets a lot of pictures that he absolutely adores. “I have a few venues in mind and I want to take some pictures outside. Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, tomorrow sounds good. Who knew posing in front of a camera would be so tiring?”

Within the span of time that they shoot, Louis sees sides of Harry that he didn’t even know existed. They were sitting together and compiling the final pictures into the power point presentation when Harry turns to Louis and takes his hand. “Thanks Lou.”

Louis doesn’t look up from his presentation. “What for?” he asks distractedly.

“For picking me to be your model. I- I really enjoyed it. Besides I uh- it was kind of an ego boost. I don’t know if you were doing it intentionally or subconsciously but you kept praising me throughout the shoot. It felt really nice.”

Louis lets out a small laugh. “You’re very welcome, love. My praise was both a subconscious reaction to a good shot and an intentional action to praise you for how good you were doing. You were pretty much a natural after you got over your initial nervousness.”

Harry grins. “Also I got to learn a lot about lighting and stuff. I don’t really put much thought into the pictures that I take but now I might just have a different outlook.”  
“Maybe now your photography won’t be as artless as your designing.” Louis teases, elbowing him, making Harry let out an offended gasp shoving Louis back. Louis laughs and throws an arm around him. Harry goes easily, snuggling up to him.

“What now?” Harry asks. “Do you like present the PPT or do you just hand it in on a flash drive or something?”

Louis sighs. “No, I gotta present your ugly mug to the entire class.” He grins.

“You’re such a little shit, you’re lucky I love you otherwise I’d have thrown you out of your own flat long ago.”

They get dinner a while later and Harry goes off to bed, pressing a soft kiss to Louis’ cheek wishing him good luck for the presentation. Louis stays up till 2 rehearsing every single slide trying to sound as professional as possible while still trying to convey how much Harry meant to him. When he finally heads to bed, he realises he’s too restless and nervous to actually sleep.

For a few minutes he debates with himself and finally cuddles end up being more appealing than cleaning through his laptop. He goes to Harry’s room and gets in his bed, wrapping his arms around him.

“Can’t sleep?” Harry murmurs groggily, backing into Louis’ warmth. Louis shakes his head and buries his head in Harry’s shoulders. Harry rubs his thumb over Louis’ hand turning to face him after a minute or so. He looks at him carefully and then places his fingers on the boy’s eyelids, closing them. He wraps his arms around him and holds him tightly. “It’s okay, I’m here.” Harry notices the wetness on his chest, feels Louis shaking, of course he does, but he doesn’t say anything.

The next morning, by the time Harry wakes up; Louis has already left for his class. Ideally, Harry would’ve liked to talk to Louis about what happened but he knew that wouldn’t happen. Louis did this once in a while, it was sad and nobody knew why, but he’d cuddle with Harry and cry himself to sleep. Every time, Harry tried to bring it up, Louis would pretend to not hear anything till Harry changed the topic.

Louis had clearly left in a hurry, dirty dishes in the sink. Harry didn’t mind picking up after Louis, mostly because he rarely needed to. Only in the mornings, and as a thank you, Louis would give him back massages and make sure they never ran out of cereal, even the nasty healthy crap that Harry ate.

Currently though, Louis was dashing through the halls, late nights never agreed with him. He woke up twenty minutes late and was already halfway through breakfast before he had realised it and run out with a piece of toast in hand. He slipped into class, managing to enter right behind the professor and quickly takes a seat at the back. “Where were you? I thought you were gonna miss today or some shit!” Cal snaps.

Louis waves him off, “long night.” He says simply. Cal was a good friend, great with a camera but Louis was in no mood to talk to anyone. Cal is about to offer a smart response but the professor calls out his name. “Aurand, Cal.”

Louis zones out till the time his name is called. Cal wishes him luck. Louis has never hated his professor more. He wouldn’t let you leave after your presentation because it was crucial to appreciate and learn from others’ work. As if Louis wasn’t already nervous enough. He walks up and connects his flash drive to the projector and takes a deep breath, introducing himself and greeting everyone ‘a very good morning’.

“Louis before you begin, could you please explain the central theme of your presentation?” The professor asks and Louis nods.

“I chose the colour red. To be honest, I chose red because it’s always been my favourite colour, it’s a bright colour and Harry looks fucking fantastic in red.” Louis had tried various approaches to why he chose red but finally he had decided for the truth and the truth it was. “Harry, the central theme of my presentation. Anyone who’s known me long enough, knows that I have a penchant for doing things I shouldn’t do, and that was exactly how I found my love for photographing my best mate. There’s little Harry hates more than being photographed candidly so of course I made that the focus of my presentation.” He starts the presentation. Finally they had picked out a picture of Harry in a red cable knit sweater in front of a tree with pink flowers as the cover. The professor smiles his approval.

Louis goes on to talk about his and Harry’s relationship and how in the short span of two years how much the boy had come to mean to him. He talks about his new camera and how it was ultimately Harry who pushed him into buying it. All the while various pictures of Harry flash in the background, red sunsets, red clothes the whole nine yards. When Louis finally finishes, the professor congratulates him on a fantastic presentation and the class politely applauds. Louis doesn’t know whether anyone genuinely liked his presentation or not but he was high on adrenaline. That was the most exciting thing he’d ever done. He had never been so proud of his work.

There are some snide remarks about how Louis talked like a lovestruck fool and not a professional but Louis can’t find it in him to care. Maybe he was, sue him. He just wanted to go home and tell Harry how everything went so he does just that.

Harry laughs deliriously and hugs him tightly. “I’m so proud of you! I knew that you’d be absolutely fantastic.”

The results are handed out in a week and Louis passes with flying colours, scoring one of the best grades in their class. He rejects his friends’ invitation for drinks and celebrates with Harry – by doing absolutely nothing besides cuddling and watching crap telly, falling in and out of sleep. It’s only when Louis finally retires to his bedroom that he remembers what the professor said when he gave him his grade. “Don’t let him go, son.”

Louis realises that that was all the push he needed. He threw off his covers and went to Harry’s room, shaking him awake. “Go on a date with me.” He tells the boy.

Harry looks absolutely confused for a second; still half asleep, barely even registering what is happening. Then he just nods and wrangles Louis onto the bed, resting his head on his chest and going back to sleep. The next morning Harry wakes up even more confused. He shakes Louis awake and says, “I’m going to ask you something. Promise me you won’t be weirded out.”

Louis hides a smirk. He has an inkling what this is about. “Sure, sure, ask away, love.”

“I- did you by any chance- like, ask me out last night? And I fell asleep after nodding, or was that a strange dream that I had?”

Louis laughs. “You did. You basically tackled me to the bed and passed out on top of me.”

“So um, to recap – you did ask me out?” Louis laughs again and nods. “So um, it’d be okay if I like kissed you?” before Louis can respond, Harry backtracks, “no wait,” he starts getting out of bed, “I have morning breath.”

Louis groans and tells him to shut up, pulling him in for a brief kiss before pulling away slightly, pressing their foreheads together. “Now go brush your teeth, your breath stinks.” He murmurs, kissing him once more and running out of the room leaving a open mouthed Harry behind, his laughter ringing through the house.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry i can't work HTML. I've just spent an hour trying to attach the individual pictures that I was talking about. But all the pictures that I had in mind while writing are [here](http://the-larry-way.tumblr.com/post/164519342150/harry-for-louis-shoot-in-you-are-the-view-harry)
> 
> The picture that Harry finds taken a year ago is the SOTT cover
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. Leave kudos and comments please. You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/louisftnoctrl)[ tumblr](http://the-larry-way.tumblr.com/) and [wattpad. All feedback is welcome. Much love xx](https://www.wattpad.com/user/larryslittlest)


End file.
